Becoming More Customer-focused
Identify your best customers
With the information you collect, focus on your best customers since these are the ones you are already doing a great job of satisfying. Your task is to find more people like these people, or turn others less satisfied into happy customers. Here are three ways of describing your best customers:
The ones who buy the most
Search through your data to find which sort of customers are high-ticket buyers. They spend lots of money on you. Their accounts are the largest. Their consumption is greatest. You need to put in extra time making sure these customers have a satisfying experience. Provide regular after sales follow-through to ensure they are happy. Make sure your employees know them by name.
The ones who buy most frequently
Your research will show if these are the same as the group above or different. Some customers may not buy much at one time but make frequent buying visits. Their frequent contact with you means you are not likely to satisfy them 100% each time but you are not likely to lose them for one slip-up either. Treat these people as friends of the family. Perhaps get to know something about what is happening in their lives to make regular conversations possible. Sometimes, you will be able to give them special deals or help them out. They will like that extra attention but they do not need it every time.
The ones who are most loyal
These people say they always buy from you and hardly ever from any competition. They have been with you the longest time. They pay their bills on time. They say they are the most satisfied with your services and the happiest with their buying experience. They may not buy much but they are loyal and will stick with you. Find out what is making them so satisfied and see if that experience could be replicated with others. Find some small or intangible way to reward their loyalty. For example, instead of sending them a calendar in the mail each year, why not give them a discount on their next purchase instead?
Find out what customers value most
Being a customer-focused company means understanding what your clients and consumers value most in their experience of dealing with your business.
What they find valuable may surprise you. It may not be what you think they should value. It may not be what you think you are selling. This is where you should listen carefully to what your customers are saying in their feedback.
Don’t forget your lost customers
In addition to focusing on your best customers, also study those who used to buy from you and no longer do. Some of these may have moved away and are not easy to find but others can be found with a little effort. Some places to search are: old order books, copies of old invoices, old letters of complaints and memories of your staff.
Check against lists of current customers to discover names of people who no longer buy from you. Then play detective and have someone track them down by phone or by survey letter to find out what has happened to them, where they shop for their needs now and why they no longer consider you.
The main purpose is to find out information, not to try to win back their business. But this can be an excellent opportunity to persuade them to return if you sense they have not been lost for good and still have business that you could carry out for them. Perhaps suggest you are having a special Come Back Offer for previous customers – a kind of loyalty programme in reverse.
© 2009 "Start Small, Grow Big" Barbara Mowat and Ted James, with the contribution of William Erichson on Chapter 6, "Financing A Growing Business". All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, amended, modified, edited, transmitted in any form, or translated in any way without the prior written permission of the copyright owners. www.ImpactCommunicationsLtd.com.